


Cherry Wine

by KaerWrites



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Brief Love Triangle, F/M, Let's songfic like it's 2005, Tumblr Prompt, allusions to Zevran's unhealthy past, crash course through this relationship, fic does not match song's original meaning, little bit of jealousy, things got a bit out of hand, very mild sex scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24237064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaerWrites/pseuds/KaerWrites
Summary: Oh, to help her from the armor that wore so heavy on her shoulders, to have his hands on her skin, soft and warm as if she’d just come in from the sun. What it meant to see her vulnerable, without the rules and barriers, metaphorical and physical, that held her so strictly, that kept the world at bay. To look at her and see not the strong, impenetrable Dalish warrior Warden, but the woman, soft and unsure and trusting, with warmth flickering behind the blue of her eyes.This is an exploration and collection of various important moments from Zevran and Lyna Mahariel's relationship.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Mahariel, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden, some Alistair/Warden
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Cherry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a prompt from tumblr that got too long for me to post there. I really struggled with this fic because I haven't done enough work developing my Origins headcanons, and because I had a difficult time thinking of a way to make the prompted song work. 
> 
> Hozier's "Cherry Wine" is a song about an abusive relationship, but that is not the relationship that these two had. I tried to approach this fic as a story about a person who had been abused falling in love, rather than a person who loved their abuser. If the song or its premise or the fact I've tried to change its meaning here bother you, please take care of yourself and hit that back button, or else at least proceed with caution. 
> 
> I really enjoyed having to take a closer look at this relationship and these characters, and ended up needing to change a few headcanons about who they were along the way. There are a few scenes that have bits and pieces of old drabbles in them, so if you follow me on tumblr, you might see some familiar things here.

It made him uneasy when she didn’t try to fuck him.

Zevran thought that he’d been perfectly clear in his intentions. No, he knew he had been clear. Sex was simple, transactional, convenient – and they’d made a deal. In return for his life, Zevran would give the warden whatever she wanted. He knew his services would not disappoint.

It had never entered his mind that she might not want him.

“This is the best I could do for right now,” the Warden said, unceremoniously dumping a pile of salvaged bedding into Zevran’s arms. They still smelled of the errant flames that had consumed most of his supplies during the failed ambush. “I’ll buy another tent next time we visit a village, if I can find one.”

She was stern, stone-faced, imposing in her battle-dented armor, with hair like fresh blood and eyes like blue glass. There was nothing warm there. Still, Zevran flashed his most endearing smile.

“It seems a lot of unnecessary trouble,” he said. “I am not opposed to, shall we say, bunking up?”

“So you can stab her in her sleep?” the other Warden, the one called Alistair, demanded.

“I assure you, any penetration would be strictly consensual.” Zevran’s smile had felled princes and kings. The loft of his eyebrow was tried and true. Even the most chaste of Chantry sisters would swoon at the lascivious warmth he allowed to fill his eyes.

Lyna frowned. Unmoved, she examined the sky. “We haven’t had much rain this spring,” she said. “The weather should hold up until we find another tent.”

\--

_Her eyes and words are so icy_

_Oh, but she burns_

_Like rum on the fire_

_Hot and fast and angry as she can be_

_I walk my days on the wire_

_\--_

Zevran yammered at the warden, because he didn’t know what else to do.

It had been a long day. A long and terrible day.

It had been a mistake, running into the possessed child Connor in the castle. The mages downstairs had been waiting, ready to begin their ritual – but the Warden’s party had stumbled across the boy before they could start, and the demon had escalated matters more quickly than they could be contained, and now they were camped several miles outside the village they had saved, because a child was dead and Redcliffe was in mourning and their presence was no longer exactly welcome.

“Did I ever tell you about the time my target’s carriage caught fire, right in the middle of a parade? No? Let’s see…” Zevran talked, because the idea of allowing silence to fall was unbearable. Because he was afraid of what would happen once it did.

Zevran tried to avoid jobs that involved children, but he hadn’t always had that luxury – and this had been a mistake, an unfortunate and tragic accident. The Warden, she was many things, he was still learning. But what he knew already was that she was not cruel, and she was not heartless, and Zevran had no reason to doubt that she would have avoided such a turn of events had she been able. Things had spiraled too quickly. He understood.

A mercy, Zevran had thought, that Lyna could bear the tragedy so well. She’d bourne the Arlessa’s screaming and insults and threats and guilt with those eyes like hard blue flecks of glass, and she’d taken them away from Redcliffe before they could be forced out, and –

“You killed Connor,” Alistair had said, the moment he got her alone in camp. “A little boy!” he said, and there was such pain in his voice that it was clear that he couldn’t see that she was holding her strength together by the thinnest of threads, that now was not the time for blame. “How could you _do_ that?”

Lyna was not cruel and she was not heartless, but Alistair, in his grief, could not see the difference between stoicism and malevolence.

Zevran had watched the cracks form in the Warden’s icy veneer as she squared her shoulders and accepted the blame, and he’d realized, to his surprise, that he would not be able to bear to witness it, should Lyna’s strength dissolve into tears.

So when it was over, he sat down beside her, and he talked.

\--

_It looks ugly, but it’s clean_

_Oh momma, don’t fuss over me_

\--

“Don’t fidget,” Lyna said, and her voice was sharp, but her eyes were concerned, and Zevran, a little bleary from blood loss, might have thought about the fact he had started to see the warmth that flickered behind that blue glass, had been _allowed_ to see it, except her hands were on his thigh and oh, _oh_ , his mind was occupied elsewhere. “It’s deep,” she said with a frown.

“Yes,” he answered, “I am certain it is.”

“The wound,” she said, and she gave him a hard look, but he knew, somehow, that she was amused. She liked it when he flirted, even if she hadn’t ordered him to her bed. But oh, _oh_ , wouldn’t it be sweet if she did? Her hands on his thigh were burning him. He was dizzy from more than blood loss.

“It is nothing,” he said. “I will promise to live if you will promise to give me a kiss.”

“Did he hit his head, too?” Alistair asked.

“Punctures are nasty,” Lyna said, ignoring them both. “Give me your belt. We’ll try to slow the bleeding long enough for me to get you to Wynn.”

“Oh, my dear warden,” Zevran said, fumbling with the clasps. “I expected you would undress me eventually, but I had hoped it would be under better conditions.”

\--

_The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine_

_\--_

It was still strange to him that she had not fucked him, but Zevran’s unease over the unusual situation had settled into something closer to gentle confusion. He was here and available and willing, and she wanted him. Zevran knew when someone wanted him, even if no one had ever looked at him quite the way that Lyna did. It seemed strange that he had ever once thought her gaze could be cold.

There was a softness to her that he hadn’t known how to look for. It hid somewhere in the tilt of her head, the warmth of her presence beside him at the fire, the questions she asked him about his life. Lyna showed herself through her actions, not her words. She tried and she failed and she tried again. She bore her burdens alone. Sometimes, Zevran found himself wondering what it would be like to help her carry them.

Their deal had been that he would help in exchange for his life, but never once had she taken what he expected to give. Fighting at her side seemed no obligation at all, as generally his own life was in danger as well. There had to be something more he could do. How could it be that each day he found himself less concerned with his debt to the Warden, yet more determined to repay it?

(Sometimes, when the weight she carried was a little lighter, he found that she would smile.)

The fire popped in the stillness of the night. The stars shone cold and high overhead. The others had all gone to find their rest, and they were as alone as they could be in such a situation as they shared. Zevran twirled a piece of straw between his thumb and his forefinger, and watched her as she checked over her armor for damage.

“I fancy many things,” he said in answer to a question, his voice a low murmur. Their conversation felt private, intimate, under the open sky. “Would you be offended if I said I fancied you?”

Her head ducked. It was hard to spot, but her ears grew pink in the firelight.

She was not offended.

\--

_Calls of guilty thrown at me_

_All while she stains_

_The sheets of some other_

_Thrown at me so powerfully,_

_Just like she throws the arm of her brother_

_\--_

Zevran was not feeling generous, or even particularly fair, but he had to concede that Alistair had likely tried for as much privacy as was possible. In a camp such as their, it was difficult not to know the business of everyone else – and many had been the night he’d felt the unhappy weight of the former templar’s gaze as Zevran sat chatting at Lyna’s side, courting and hoarding every rare smile he could earn. It was a game, a challenge – it was fun to chip that shell away, to watch the Warden relax, to get her to return his flirtations.

Alistair had brought her a rose.

Zevran could not bear to watch it when he kissed her. He caught a glance of something like pity from Leliana, before she caught herself and looked away. He could not understand the sickly curl of envy that wound its way down his throat and slithered, warm and heavy, into his belly.

Sex was meaningless, seduction a tool. Zevran was not built to entertain illusions. Even if she _had_ fucked him, such an act would hardly have been a claim he could hold her to. And he had even less than that. Their’s was a transactional relationship, an amusing way to pass the time.

He would not have been capable of loving her the way a man such as Alistair could, anyway.

\--

_But I want it_

_It’s a crime_

_That she’s not around most of the time_

_\--_

“I’ve watched you two together,” Zevran said. “I know a complication when it rears its head and threatens to bite.” He tried to smile. To make the conversation casual. To stop caring. It was a bright and windy day, still cool, and the particular way the sunlight fell against the Warden’s face was distractingly fetching. She had never looked more beautiful than the moment he began to gather the courage to let go of whatever it was he’d been fool enough to think they shared.

He’d pulled her aside along a long stretch of road bordered by tall weeds, overgrown farmland abandoned by owners fearing the Blight. He had urged the others go ahead without them and Alistair, frowning, kept glancing back at them until a bend in the road took the rest of the party out of sight.

Lyna was frowning at him, reaching absently to push back the blood colored hair the wind blew into her face. Zevran spoke around the strange knot that had somehow formed itself in his throat.

“You and I have had our fun,” he said, and tried not to sound too bitter. “But if this thing between you and Alistair is leading anywhere, I will be happy to step aside. Complication avoided. Everyone is happier, yes?”

Zevran didn’t feel happier. But since then had that mattered?

“I don’t want you to step aside,” Lyna said, after a stretch of silence that he could hardly withstand. The way she was holding her hair back from her face left it clean and bare and dear. Her eyes were unbearable to look at. Zevran had to laugh.

“I do not wish to do so,” he said, with more honestly than he’d ever intended. “But this is no simple matter. I make no claims on you. I would not dream of such. You are free to pursue your fancies as you desire, and I would have it no other way.”

He wanted her to be happy. That was the frustrating, painful, surprising thing. Her company, their talks, the flirtation – none of it was supposed to mean anything. None of it was supposed to turn into something he would miss. He knew better than that. He had been trained for better than that. Walking away should have been easy. He should not have been able to so much as hope that she would stop him.

He pushed his emotions down, flattened them into a hard ball, and buried them somewhere deep and dark within. With them he sent the errant, unfair thoughts that tempted him to make one last attempt to seduce her, to turn her from Alistair, to arrange matters in a way he would find more satisfying. He would not allow himself to entertain such ideas.

Lyna’s expression seemed so hard, so stern, but he had leaned to read her, and he could see the conflict in her eyes. He knew, then, that she cared about them both.

He forced himself to continue before either of them could make a terrible mistake.

“I suspect Alistair, however, would feel the same way,” Zevran said. “If there were something between you and I, to string him along would only hurt him deeply. Surely you know this is true.”

“I…” she said. “I suppose you’re right.”

Guilt. The last thing she needed more of. It hurt his heart, the look in her eye, almost as much as the thought of the loss of whatever it was they were doing. Zevran tried to make himself cold, to cut off his emotions, as he had learned to do as a child. For the first time in decades, he failed. He reached for her hands, and she let him take them. The chill spring breeze blew the hair across her face, and he gently tucked it back again.

“What would you have of me?” he asked, and felt the bitter surge, for he knew of the two of them, he and Alistair, Alistair was the better man. “I am many things,” Zevran said. “A murderer, a thief… a lover. But I am no cheat. If whatever is between us cannot be honest, let it not be at all.”

He was unfamiliar with the pain he felt as he braced himself for her answer.

She surprised him when she grabbed his hand as it retreated.

“I want you,” she said. “No question.”

\--

_The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_Blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine_

_\--_

Oh, to help her from the armor that wore so heavy on her shoulders, to have his hands on her skin, soft and warm as if she’d just come in from the sun. What it meant to see her vulnerable, without the rules and barriers, metaphorical and physical, that held her so strictly, that kept the world at bay. To look at her and see not the strong, impenetrable Dalish warrior Warden, but the woman, soft and unsure and trusting, with warmth flickering behind the blue of her eyes.

“You know,” Zevran said, “I am a fan of a great many positions. But I have never done this with someone while they are standing up. Perhaps you should lay down.” He took her hand, kissed it, guided her to her sleeping mat as if she were his guest. “I am fond of experimentation, true, yet I do not wish to sacrifice the quality of your very first massage.”

He knelt beside the pallet as she arranged herself on her stomach, arranging his tools and pretending not to watch when she removed her loose undershirt. There was still a slight bit of hesitance in her hands, a sign of nerves he would not be so graceless as to draw attention to. He showed her the array of oils he had prepared.

“This one, I think, will be best,” he said. “It will relax you without compromising your wits. Should darkspawn storm the camp again, you might not _want_ to get up and fight, but you will be capable of it. I have a less effective alternative if the effects worry you, though.”

He saw gratitude as she turned her head toward him, a bit of a smile, a gentleness of her gaze that few others had the privilege to witness. “It’s fine,” she said, and there was enough breathiness to her words to make him smile.

He warmed the vial in one hand, while he traced the fingertips of the other slowly along the planes of her muscular back. “I have long awaited the chance to have my hands on you.”

“Me too,” she said, and closed her eyes, and he chuckled.

“Oh? It is news to me,” he teased. “How fortunate for us both, then.” He shifted to straddle her hips, settling himself comfortably, ready to move should she object. They were of similar height, the Warden a little taller, and he did not expect his weight to be a bother. He chuckled again at her sharp indrawing of breath. “My dear, you have no need to be nervous,” he promised, as his slick hands moved up her back, firm and sure. She was silent for a while, till his thumbs in her knots at her shoulders brought forth a sound.

“It’s been a while,” she said finally. “Since I’ve been touched.”

Zevran clicked his tongue, and stretched himself across her to press his lips to the back of her neck. “It is a deep and terrible shame,” he said, “But one which I am more than happy to remedy.”

“Such an eager helper,” she murmured, to which he laughed.

“Yes!” he said. “And you will find, I am sure, that I am also a very competent lover.”

\--

_Her fight and fury is fiery_

_Oh, but she loves_

_Like sleep to the freezing_

_Sweet and right and merciful_

_I’m all but washed_

_In the tide of her breathing_

_\--_

Zevran was quite enamored of the strength in her hands as she pinned his wrists to the pallet. It was delicious, accompanied by the sweet, demanding roll of her hips as she rode him, her body warm and inviting, welcoming, lovely in the lamp’s dim haze.

Her lips against his lips, her breasts skimming his chest as she stretched herself above him. He was glad, now, that she had not bedded him sooner – for how could he have traded this night for any other? How could he had appreciated what it meant to see her undone before he had come to let himself understand how little of herself she allowed the world to see?

“ _Amor_ ,” he said, whispered, pled. He watched her lip pull between her teeth, watched the flush that spread across her lovely skin as pleasure took her. Her burdens could not be erased, her demons merely banished for a time, but this reprieve he could give her – and himself. “ _Amor, amor, amor…”_

She released his wrists, and taking her by the hips he rolled them, her legs locking tight around him, his lips swallowing the sounds she made. There was something, he realized. Something of the pain in her that recognized the pain in him, the things that could not be said, could not be shared, the monsters that could never be allowed to see the light of day. They saw it, deep within the other, and there was solace.

He slowed the pace of their lovemaking, and she clung to him while he kissed the tears from her eyes.

\--

_And it’s worth it, it’s divine_

_I have some of the time_

\--

There was blood on Taliesin’s lips, bright as a whore’s lipstick, bold and vibrant, violent against the gloom. Taliesin wasn’t smiling anymore. His eyes stared, sightless, up into the flat Ferelden sky.

Movement at his peripherals slowly drew Zevran’s eye. His brain worked to make sense of anything that wasn’t Taliesin. Splash of color, too bright against the gloom. Hair like blood and eyes like blue glass, face a bronzed and solemn oval.

For a moment, Zevran fancied the idea of indulging in the grief that tickled at the back of his mind. He pictured himself falling upon her cold hard armor, his tears wetting the fragrant column of her neck. He knew she smelled of woods and wild. He knew her arms were strong and sturdy. It seemed so strange and so laughable now, that he had pushed her away. That he had thought the feelings he felt were the most terrible thing that could happen to him.

She would let him come to her, he thought. If he wanted comfort, she would give it, though it was not in her nature to nurture. She was practical and logical, but not unkind. She would not know what to say to him, but she would put her arms around him, all the same, even after what he had done. She would _try_. That knowledge was enough.

“Taliesin is dead,” Zevran said, and if his voice did not make the journey from his mouth with quiet the buyout cheer he had initially intended to muster, neither did it hold the threat of tears. “I am free of the Crows.”

\--

_The way she tells me I’m hers and she is mine_

_Open hand or closed fist would be fine_

_The blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine_

_\--_

His heart did a thing when he saw her that Zevran was not yet used to. The shining armor she wore looked too perfect after the dents and dirt and heavy use her old set had seen. Months on the road made it strange to see the way she had been sanitized and dressed up for the grateful masses, this tamed Dalish who had saved them all from the Blight. They would laugh about it later.

She certainly stood out among the humans and their finery. She was unmistakable – that flash of blood colored hair, the lovely yet unsmiling face, the unconscious pride with which she carried herself – and Zevran’s heart did that thing and he wondered at himself and at how he had ever managed to pretend that his feelings for her were anything but love.

Ah, but he had always been a very good liar, hadn’t he?

How narrow the escape – how miraculous the fate. She was alive, and the Blight was ended, and when she picked him out of the crowd, he knew the trick to spotting the warmth that flickered behind the blue glass gaze that met his own, the slight, subtle curve of lips he had gladly memorized the taste of.

“I will be relieved when all this pomp and ceremony is done,” he said, he said, when she made her way to him. Eyes followed her, followed him. She belonged to them now, in a sense, and he was not sure he would enjoy sharing as much as he usually did. Their fireside talks in camp felt worlds away now – and yet he would gladly follow, wherever else she led him.


End file.
